She is 81, and otherwise completely functional and independent. Drinks wine every night, but still had episodes when not drinking, (for two months) after surgery. Has family history of Alzheimer's, but so far has shown only normal aging memory deficiency.
She hears neighbors singing or playing music during sleep hours at night, which keeps her awake. Worse, she thinks they are doing it on purpose to irritate her. We have no other interaction with the neighbors in question. No one else has heard these noises, and an all night recording did not pick up anything either.
Where do I go from here?
It is not uncommon for elders who don't know their own wives or families nor even their own name or history to know the words and tunes to many songs.
The next step for you? Evaluation by your wife's doctors; request a referral to a neuro-psyc specialist for baseline testing;
I wish you the very best of luck.
That said, there is a condition known as Musical ear syndrome, or MES, that causes auditory hallucinations where patients hear music or singing that isn't there. The condition normally occurs in those already suffering from hearing loss and is a result of the brain ‘filling in the gaps’ caused by the hearing loss.
If your wife suffers from hearing loss, MES could be what's going on. But the condition does not cause paranoia.
Best of luck to you.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5420178/
The thing you need to be worried about is a brain tumor. I have a 60 year old friend who had brain surgery yesterday to remove a massive and thankfully benign tumor that was causing all sorts of weird symptoms. Thankfully, neither he nor his wife wrote it off as nothing.
A good neurologist would be a good start. At the very least, she needs some imaging of her brain done.
"Honey, this thing with the music you hear? I'm concerned that it's something we need to investigate so we can make sure it's not physical. I've made an appointment to see Dr. T tomorrow"
Please let us know how this works out.